1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, requirement for reduction in power consumption of a multifunction peripheral/laser printer (MFP/LP) apparatus is increased. For example, Japanese Patent No. 4481051 discloses the following configuration, in order to reduce power consumption of a plurality of image forming apparatuses connected to each other through a network. One image forming apparatus (an image forming apparatus operating as a master) receives print jobs of other image forming apparatuses and determines which image forming apparatus is to be used for printing, based on power consumption.
The technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4481051 has the configuration in which the image forming apparatuses communicate with each other through the network. That is, other image forming apparatuses that wait for print jobs from the image forming apparatus operating as the master need to stand by in a state of being capable of responding to the network. In order to make the other image forming apparatuses be in the state of being capable of responding to the network, electric power needs to be supplied to a physical circuit, a logical layer circuit, a central processing unit (CPU), and the like of the network. This requires electric power of approximately 100 mW and the power consumption cannot be reduced sufficiently. Therefore, there is a need for an image forming system and an image forming apparatus that are capable of reducing power consumption further.